All Over Again
by thinkwinkink
Summary: Bucky visits the empty grave set up for him when the army declared him KIA and unexpectedly meets a family member. #laughatcivilwar


_A/N: I wrote this for tumblr but thought I'd add it here too because I liked it. Can you tell I'm still salty about ~that thing~ in Civil War?_

Bucky did his best to keep his breathing even and steady as he marched through the lines of headstones. He didn't know why it felt so important to him, why he had tracked it down without the help of his friends new and old, but it was a heavy kind of topic. Something private and personal. Between him and the family he had lost to time.

He jerked to a halt in front of the thirty-first headstone in the row; the methodical counting of the monuments as he passed was like a metronome, and once he stopped it was like he fell out of time.

Not many people got to see their headstone, visit their own grave. He stood on the empty plot, eyes glued to the basic concrete marker. His family had never been swimming in cash, to say the least, but they had scraped the funds together to leave a permanent mark with his name on it. At home, in his own country, in the same cemetery where his grandparents and likely the rest of his family lay.

He hadn't had the heart, yet, to look into the rest of his family. His parents must be long gone. Probably his sisters too. Had they married? Had children? Were they happy and healthy and safe many years after his life had been violently ripped from his remaining hand? A deep, familiar ache rose in his chest as he thought about all the moments he had missed, all the brotherly things he should have been there to do like threaten boyfriends.

JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES  
1917-1945  
KILLED IN ACTION  
 _GONE BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN_

For a long time he just stared at the words to the sombre soundtrack of wind whooshing through pine trees and whistling around mournful marble angels.

Eventually, a new sound caught his attention. He blinked slowly, looking around him.

There, a couple of rows away, a figure in black crouched by a fresh grave. The wind carried the sound of her sobs to him, almost as though some unseen force demanded he notice her. Part of him wanted to just leave her be, but a deeper impulse drove him to see if she was alright.

He approached her carefully, painfully aware that he probably wasn't the kind of person you'd want approaching you in so desolate a place. She didn't look up as he passed the dead flowers and random assortments of trinkets that meant something to the departed souls, left as offerings to the dead and mysteries to passers-by.

"Excuse me, miss," he said quietly when he stood a few paces away, at the foot of the grave. The headstone was shiny marble with elegant details carved around the border.

She jumped, jerking into a more formal sitting position from where she had been collapsed at the side of the fresh dirt. She gazed up at him, sniffling slightly. She had bright blue eyes and thick chestnut hair, her squarish jaw reminding him of his mother.

"I get that everyone's sad at a cemetery, but I just wanted to check if you were... okay," he said lamely, his hands twisting together awkwardly behind his back.

"Oh, thanks," she said, offering a watery smile. "Um, I'm fine. I mean, my brother… he's gone so… I'm also not okay."

He nodded sympathetically, eyes flicking back to the headstone. He did a double take when he read the engraving.

HERE LIES JAMES IAN BARNES  
TAKEN TOO SOON  
1993-2016

"James Barnes?" he read incredulously.

"Yeah. Let me guess, you're a history buff? He's named after my great uncle – he was a war hero. He's buried just over there," she told him with a hint of a teasing smile, gesturing back the way he had come.

"Is that so?" he said weakly.

"Actually, I think Dad said they never found his body, but they wanted a grave anyway. I'm Megan, by the way," she added as an afterthought, standing to offer her hand.

He stared at her until her friendly but tired smile turned into an expression of confused concern.

"Bucky," he finally replied, shaking the hand she held between them. "Bucky Barnes."

She froze, then chuckled unsurely. "Are you messing with me?" she asked.

"No, I'm really not. There's a good reason they never found the body," he said. "Do you want to go get a coffee or something, and we can talk?"

She blinked up at him, eyes darting over his face as she weighed him up. Eyes just like his own.

"Okay. That sounds like a good idea," she agreed.

 **l l l**

"We'll have to watch it later, Steve," he called from the bathroom. "I told you, I have a prior engagement."

"Hot date, Buck?" Steve laughed from the couch.

Bucky levelled him with a stern look as he walked back into the living room, buttoning a cuff. "I'm going out with my niece. Don't be weird," he reprimanded.

Before he could respond, there was a knock at the door. Bucky cast him a withering look as he crossed the room to answer it. He swung it open to reveal Megan, wearing a pretty floral dress, but he noticed the pendant around her neck was black. She continued to wear a mark of mourning at all times, though she was being more restrained about it.

"Hi, Uncle Bucky," she said brightly, reaching up to kiss him on the cheek as he let her in.

"Hey, Meg. This is Steve," he said, gesturing to his friend on the sofa.

Steve was looking at her with great interest as he stood to shake her hand. "Great to meet you," he smiled, drawing a friendly grin from her.

"I'm just going to find a jacket, then we can go," Bucky said, disappearing down the hall to his bedroom.

 **l l l**

"So, what did you think of Steve?" he asked as they walked out of the restaurant.

She giggled and looked away. "He was nice," she said simply.

Bucky narrowed his eyes. "Okay. What else?" he probed suspiciously.

"Um, he asked me out. We're going to go to the movies," she admitted a little giddily.

Bucky balked, then huffed and looked away.

 **l l l**

Steve woke to someone hitting him with a pillow with impressive force.

"What the hell?!" he yelled, trying to grab the pillow from his attacker. His struggles saw him roll out of bed and land with a meaty thud on the floor.

"Me what the hell? You what the hell!" a familiar voice yelled back.

"Bucky?" Steve said in confusion. He reached up and flicked on his bedside lamp. "Did you break into my apartment?"

"Yes. For good reason. I left you alone for one minute, and you couldn't help yourself!" he cried, bringing the pillow down again with a loud whump.

"Stop hitting me with that! What are you talking about?" he demanded.

"WHAT IS IT WITH YOU AND PEOPLE'S NIECES?"


End file.
